Snow and Frost

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny Saturday and I didn't go anywhere on any adventures. I stayed home did laundry, ran errands, and relaxed. It was nice. I felt like I was run pretty ragged most of the month. I worked hard and played hard this month. I'll begin with a report on the playing.

I got to go backpacking with my roommate Andy and his dad in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. We planned on a loop estimated to be about 40 miles. Our 9am initial trail departure turned into a 4pm departure and we were never able to really make up the time. We made tracks from camp site to camp site just to make it back in time. I was able to squeeze in some fishing and got to land some lake trout out of Grave Lake. Those are the first lake trout I have caught so it was fun to add those to the fishing resume.

We were favored with good health, no accidents, some nice fish, and weather we were prepared for. We were counting on getting rain but the snow we received the last morning was a surprise. It snowed large soggy flakes for several hours that provided a thin, wet, white covering of the landscape. The highlight for me was a solo jaunt into the Southfork Lakes on Friday. I was pleasantly surprised by the magnificent views of Bison Head Peak and the adjoining peaks that created a semicircle around those lakes. There was a thin ribbon of silver water that cascaded down one granite wall and I wondered where that water could be coming from as I could see no melting snowfield, just blue sky above the rock.

It was a sunny, warm day and I was able to catch some 18” cutts. They were not gimmies either. I tied on a little hairwing caddis which the trout slowly came up to investigate. If a trout doesn’t like the looks of a fly it will usually just refuse it and turn away about the same speed that it approached the fly. There were several trout that came up to take a look then turned away so fast it make me think they saw a ghost. One fish just about sank that fly by the splash it made with its tail as it did a 180 and sped off for the depths of the lake. I have never seen fish behave that way with one of my presentations and I was slightly offended!

I camped out with Len and Brooke and her family at Alturas Lake on the way up to work this past weekend. It also just happened to be the coldest night with temps in the 20s. So I experienced snow and a hard frost before August was half over! I have some pointed questions I want to ask Al Gore.

The Hayden clinic has been Medicare approved and accepting patients almost every day. I only got about half the work done that I needed to this last visit up. I am headed up again this week and bringing help this time. My colleague from Pocatello will be coming to assist. They still have not been able to fill the position there so I'm not sure how many more times I will be coming. I am getting spread pretty thin though and am feeling the pressure to stay on top of things at all three clinics. Okay, maybe I am ready for another adventure.